Gigatron vs. Arduino Uno

Using, learning, programming and modding the Gigatron and anything related.
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giobbi
Posts: 38
Joined: 11 Jul 2021, 22:12

Gigatron vs. Arduino Uno

Post by giobbi »

hi guys,

I was wondering how you can control the Gigatron by the Arduino Uno sending strings through the serial (USB) port of Arduino.

I wrote a very simple program that allows me to send whatever char from my Win7 PC to the Arduino through its COM port, by the USB cable.
However I suppose I should know the right syntax.

I've seen there are some python samples, but I don't know python so it would be a time consuming for me.

I've seen this nice video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUN380Zv1lQ and I'm trying to understand if he's sending some ascii sequence to control the gigatron, and what this sequence is.

any idea/suggestion?
at67
Site Admin
Posts: 647
Joined: 14 May 2018, 08:29

Re: Gigatron vs. Arduino Uno

Post by at67 »

Your Arduino Uno should be running BabelFish, once it is running BabelFish it will be able to interpret a whole host of ASCII commands, (there is plenty of documentation on BabelFish both in the forums and in the repo).
giobbi
Posts: 38
Joined: 11 Jul 2021, 22:12

Re: Gigatron vs. Arduino Uno

Post by giobbi »

I suppose it's just a matter to upload babelfish on Arduino Uno (I got it from the \Contrib\pkupper\BabelFish folder and I compiled and uploaded to the Arduino Uno)... Am I right?

The Uno is connected to the Gigatron as shown in the tutorial picture (4 wires). When they're connected together the "L" green LED on the Uno board is on.

When I connect my software (or any other terminal software) through the (usb)serial to the Uno board I receive some weird chars (i.e.: "p°W8(ÓñS[¹$ß¡‹™[u"). If I send any ASCII char to the Arduino, the X1 red LED blinks but nothing happens.

I'm having some serious problems to find anything through the forum, the search tool is useless, if you try to use the search word you need, i.e. "babelfish", it says "The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: babelfish" so you must to search in every post of the forum what you need :-( -- Google didn't help me too much this time, unfortunately.

However tomorrow I will try to find more info through the forum and the repo. What I wish to have, is the script this guy is using in the youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUN380Zv1lQ


as always, thanks for your help and your time, you're saving me a lot of headache these days :D
giobbi
Posts: 38
Joined: 11 Jul 2021, 22:12

Re: Gigatron vs. Arduino Uno

Post by giobbi »

...I think there's something wrong on the Arduino Uno <--> Gigatron link. Or the Uno board is someway bad.

I've seen your emulator can directly control the hardware so I did a try. Some info are definitely sent to the Arduino (I can see the X1 and L lights blinking) but whatever the command I send to the Arduino, the ONLY result I ALWAYS get is that on the real Gigatron the pointer "->" goes from "Snake" to "Tetronis". This also happens when I power the Gigatron before to connect the Arduino to the USB port or I press the reset button on the Uno.

Code: Select all

Enable      = 0        ; I tried both 0 and 1
BaudRate    = 115200   ; tried with lower speed, 9600
ComPort     = COM2     ; BTW with the syntax ComPort = 2 there's no response from the Arduino (no LEDs blinking)
EDIT: if I connect the Pluggy keyb to the Gigatron, select the Loader and then unplug the Pluggy and connect the Uno, I can see the white strip behind the LOAD text to flash (quickly toogling between black and white) if I type some keys from inside the emulator with the "Giga" or "GigaPS2" options enabled (F10/F12).

I do not understand what is the command (if any) to upload a program to the real hardware from inside the emulator (of course admitting my Uno is working).

I also remembered the crystal on my Gigatron is slightly faster, 6.4 MHz (I didn't find the right one here in Brazil). Could it prevent from a correct sync? The Pluggy works fine, however.
klf
Posts: 17
Joined: 10 Jan 2019, 22:48

Re: Gigatron vs. Arduino Uno

Post by klf »

giobbi wrote: 22 Aug 2021, 03:18 When I connect my software (or any other terminal software) through the (usb)serial to the Uno board I receive some weird chars (i.e.: "p°W8(ÓñS[¹$ß¡‹™[u"). If I send any ASCII char to the Arduino, the X1 red LED blinks but nothing happens.
First get the serial communication working. Until the PC is able to communicate with the Babelfish Arduino, all further steps make no sense.

giobbi wrote: 22 Aug 2021, 14:58 I also remembered the crystal on my Gigatron is slightly faster, 6.4 MHz (I didn't find the right one here in Brazil). Could it prevent from a correct sync? The Pluggy works fine, however.
Babelfish synchronizes with the Gigatron video timing. This is done in the routine detectGigatron(). There is a range check for the measured times, so you may need to adjust or bypass this. However, as long as you read "Gigatron OK" and not "!Gigatron offline" on the serial port, the syncronization should be there.
giobbi
Posts: 38
Joined: 11 Jul 2021, 22:12

Re: Gigatron vs. Arduino Uno

Post by giobbi »

klf wrote: 22 Aug 2021, 17:11
giobbi wrote: 22 Aug 2021, 03:18 When I connect my software (or any other terminal software) through the (usb)serial to the Uno board I receive some weird chars (i.e.: "p°W8(ÓñS[¹$ß¡‹™[u"). If I send any ASCII char to the Arduino, the X1 red LED blinks but nothing happens.
First get the serial communication working. Until the PC is able to communicate with the Babelfish Arduino, all further steps make no sense.

Really that garbage didn't sound good to me, but I didn't expect a full text menu from the Arduino Uno after the connection; I didn't know what to expect, actually. I did a test on another PC (that worked at first shot) so I had a working sample to count on.
For some reason my PC loosed the COM configuration in the device panel. It should fine now (or at least I know where to look at, now)

As usual, thank you so much for your precious help!!!
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